Projections of dramatic change draw group to UCSD to strategize about vulnerabilities of affected areas

Point Loma 
Climate researchers, social scientists and policy experts from across the Pacific Rim convened at UC San Diego last week to get ahead of seas projected to rise so dramatically that they could create some of the most visible effects of global warming.

Representatives from about 20 leading research universities and nonprofit groups in South Korea, Russia, Indonesia and elsewhere met to prepare for potentially catastrophic effects on 200 million people and trillions of dollars of coastal assets.

Sea levels off most of California are expected to rise about 3 feet by 2100, according to recent projections by the National Research Council. Higher seas create challenges for port cities from San Diego to Singapore, including the potential for dramatically increased damage to coastal roads, homes and beaches — especially during storms.

“All future development has to be assessed in regards to future rises in sea level,” Steffen Lehmann, professor of sustainable design at the University of South Australia, said during the conference. “Reducing the vulnerabilities of urban (areas) is the big topic, the big task ahead of us now.”

Potential responses include managing a retreat from eroding bluffs and reshaping coastal areas to buffer development from higher water levels. “The missing link (is) between the science and those guys in planning offices and architecture firms and city municipal offices,” Lehmann said.

David Woodruff, director of the University of California San Diego’s Sustainability Solutions Institute, organized the workshop to address that problem with cross-disciplinary discussions that move toward international action.

“We are trying to affect societal change,” he said. “The sooner we start scoping options, the less expensive it will be to save current infrastructure.”

The workshop was sponsored by the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, a consortium of 42 leading research institutions. Participants drafted a report about rising sea levels for top university leaders so they can make the topic a priority with national-level leaders around the Pacific Rim.

“I really think universities can play a key role,” said UC San Diego’s Charles Kennel. “They are right at the pivot point between connecting knowledge to action. … One of the places they need to transfer their knowledge to is adaptation to climate change.”

A warming climate causes sea levels to rise primarily by heating the oceans — which causes the water to expand — and by melting land ice, which drains water to the ocean. Sea levels at any given spot depend on a complex interaction of factors, such as ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns and tectonic plate movements.

Global sea level has risen about 7 inches during the 20th century, the National Research Council said.

While sea-level-rise projections aren’t a sure thing, they are widely accepted by mainstream scientists. Skeptics see it as a waste of money to plan for problems that may not materialize for decades, or may be more modest than predicted.

North Carolina legislators got national attention over the summer when they considered a bill that would have based official policies related to sea-level rise on historical data instead of projections that water levels will rise much more rapidly in coming decades.

The San Diego region is among the most aggressive in the country when it comes to planning for changing sea levels.

In February, local agencies released a vulnerability assessment for San Diego Bay that said the greatest cause for concern in coming decades will be an increase in the frequency and severity of flooding during storms and very high tides. It said that by 2100 “many areas around the bay could be permanently inundated” — and that buildings, parks, transportation links, and energy and water infrastructure are all at risk.

The strategy offered several recommendations, including factoring sea level rise into local planning and development — a strategy that could take years to bear fruit.

The region’s leadership role is partly because of decades of climate research at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Woodruff said last week’s conference helped boost the university’s profile in another way.

“It puts us firmly on the international circuit as player beyond the narrow science that we have always been leaders in,” he said. “We are trying to move this university onto the international stage in a broader area.”